Posts by BobHiggins

I have loaded the reactor tube with a fuel comprised of the same HCL processed Hunter Chemical AH50 Ni powder + LiAlH₄ + metallic Li. The metallic Li was easy enough to handle in the dry glove box with tweezers. The humidity in my dry glove box was about 5.4% and it had air, not argon. Handling in air with low humidity was no big deal. I had to use a pair of wire cutters to divide the 1/4" OD x 3/8" long chunks into smaller pieces to drop into the tube. The tube is filled with fuel. I will now weigh it and begin re-assembling the reactor system. Hopefully, I will begin the next experiment in about 3-4 hours.

This experiment will not only have the change in fuel, but will also employ the magnetic field stimulation.

THHuxleynew

Regarding GSM interference... Alan tested for HV impulse noise interference and found that the scintillator was relatively immune. Was it tested with GSM? Probably not - we would have to ask Alan. It is a concern. It is hard to picture how GSM interference would manifest in a gamma spectrometer - it should be tested. The GM counter with the pancake tube would be much worse. The neutron detectors need testing for electromagnetic compatibility.

I am concerned about the use of GSM phones in the vicinity of the GM and neutron detectors. The phone could easily upset their measurements. GSM phones have high power RF pulses that are very bad about entering sensitive electronics. The pancake tube would provide a perfect antenna for the GSM signal. GSM phones interact with the mobile provider autonomously - so you don't even have to be on a call to get interference. Those phones should be OFF when making measurements, or well away from the electronics.

eros

The control run that you describe will have to be examined in detail. Let's not draw conclusions from it yet.

Argon

I tried to communicate with Bob Greenyer during the test, and had some difficulty (this needs to be better resolved in the future); but my message did reach him. I asked him to measure the temperature of the reactor side water outlet to compare it to the secondary side inlet water temperature to get an idea of how much heat was exiting the primary side of the heat exchanger. He measured the temperature with a glass thermometer and posted that there was about a 1°C difference in temperature. So, for the actual experiment, the efficiency of the heat exchanger was good. In future experiments, such quantities as reactor water input flow rate, reactor input temperature, and heat exchanger outlet temperature all need to be recorded as part of the raw data. One would compare the reactor inlet temperature and the heat exchanger primary outlet temperature to understand, and the inlet flow to estimate how much heat was not measured by the heat exchanger. All temperature measurements in that case would relatively low temperature water (no attempt to measure steam).

It would be useful to measure the power input to the pump as well, for use in detailed follow-up analysis. However, it was pointed out to me (Cravens) that since the inlet water goes through the pump, it will turn some or most of the electrical energy that went into the pump into pre-heating of the inlet water. If the water temperature is measured before the pump, then the energy input from the pump is at least partly accounted in the calorimetry.

can

I like to work with an "elapsed time" variable in seconds. So, one of the first things I do is add a column that is created from subtraction of date stamps. That way I get a good idea of the sample period naturally.

me356

I want to thank you for letting MFMP be involved in your project. Though our "Men in Various Albedo" did not document excess heat from your system this time, it seemed to be on the verge of doing so. As you suggest, removing the water pump from the measurement, and accounting for other output heats that were lost (but not measured) could have tipped the scale over a COP of 1 for the electrical input to heat output COP of the reactor itself. Please don't let those that criticized the reactor or the experiment undermine your resolve to succeed. Also, please allow MFMP to return again when you have something you wish to share with the world.

@Sherlock Holmes

What I took from his message was that his heater coil burned out and that is what stopped the experiment.

can

First, the sample period is about 5.01 seconds, so there are 600/5 = 120 samples per 10 minutes. To maintain best accuracy, don't do anything with the PCE800 cumulative energy column for the input - it is integrated most accurately inside the meter. Next you want to construct the per-sample energy in the output based on the average temperature difference between 2 samples, the average flow between two samples, the time between samples (subtract the time stamps), and the 4.184 J/g/C. Then accumulate the per-sample energy to get the cumulative energy output curve. Now you have the cumulative input energy (provided by the PCE800) and the calculated output energy curve. For each 10 minutes of time (120 samples) centered on a sample, compute the energy change during that period in the output and in the input. Then the 10 minute rolling average COP is Delta-E_out/Delta-E_In.

Also note that when the Omega flow meter had no flow for about the first 21 samples, it registered an output of approximately 0.0212. This appeared to be an offset in the measurement, so I subtracted this from all samples so that with no flow, the signal would read 0.000. The water should actually have been flowed through the heat exchanger for a while until the inlet and the outlet temperatures were the same before turning on the reactor.

Your curve doesn't look quite the same, probably mostly from the different number of samples in the average, and from not correcting the flow meter signal (which I didn't mention before).

Eric Walker

I can add a plot, but it is likely where the power input is being controlled into one of its recovery modes where the period of the power input cycle is greater than 10 minutes.

Eric Walker

The power monitor directly reports cumulative energy input. I calculated the cumulative energy output. Then, centered on the data sample in question, I went forward in time 5 minutes worth of samples, and backwards in time 5 minutes worth of samples. I subtracted the cumulative energy forward - the cumulative energy backward for the input and output cumulative energy data. The 10 minute running average COP was then the OUT(forward5-backward5)/IN(forward5-backward5). At no point in this calculation was the "instantaneous COP" part of the calculation.

I have downloaded the data and have re-calculated a couple of the curves. As I expected, something was wrong with the COP calculation - OR - I re-calculated it wrong (someone please check what I got). Here are the curves I calculated:

As Me356 suggests, perhaps it would be better to subtract the power for the pump. This would bump up the COP curve a little bit, but not very much. When he gets the reactor working like he previously described, the power for this pump will be insignificant.

It looks like (and I will have to check with our Men of Various Albedo) that the PA1000 and the PCE800 measuring instruments were connected in cascade. This caused one of them to measure the power that the other instrument draws to operate. In this case, it looks like the PA1000 was measuring the operating power of the PCE800 (about 0.8 watts continuous). So, calculations should be based on the PCE800 measured power data, and/or subtract the 0.8 watts from the power the PA1000 measured.

Thanks can - got the data.

I hope that Me356 has not fooled himself. It happens to the best of us at some time or another - and it doesn't play favorites based on what degree you hold. It is the most disappointing when we discover it was our own mistake. Let's still hold out hope that he has something. MFMP is leaving the measuring equipment with him for a couple of weeks. Perhaps he can discover what has happened in these experiments and tell us.

Good job MFMP men in various albedo!

Regarding the data counts... If BobG or any of the others had a GSM phone present, it would be very bad for the radiation detection. The high power pulsing of the GSM transmissions (which go on autonomously) are a terrible noise source to filter out of the equipment. The pancake tubes would be a perfect antenna for this RF interference.

Well, I just discovered that the Plot.ly export function did not work. Does anyone have the Google drive link to the raw data?

The raw data must be analyzed as can has done and double checked. However it looks like the energy balance says that the experiment was null regardless of what the rolling average COP appeared on average. The rolling average COP was added at the last minute. I am not sure it was calculated correctly. If you look at the rolling average COP and its area above 1.0 and its area below 1.0, it looks like the energy balance should have been positive.

Peter Metz

On the Plot.ly graph, you can select the export button and export the raw data to Excel instead of having to try to manually capture the data.

The energy balance fails to account for is the energy that is presently stored in the reactor and the reactor heat not registered. You could turn the power off now and the stored energy would come out of the reactor for a while after it is turned off.

When I say not measured, consider this. Let's say that the inlet water temperature is 14°C and the outlet water temperature is 18°C. What is the outlet temperature for the reactor water that is cooled by the heat exchanger? Let's say it exits at 16°C to pick a number. The inlet to the reactor was 14°C also, so there would be 2°C of reactor heat that is missed by not cooling the water all the way to 14°C. This goes unaccounted in the present system and shorts the accounting of the reactor heat. The instantaneous power missed may be small, but it is lost over the course of the whole experiment time. It would be nice if we could get the temperature of the reactor outlet after the heat exchanger measured.

Presently the energy balance is about -4%. Given the nature of the heat not measured by the integrated energy metric, the real balance may be above 1.

You can also click on the Plot.ly curve legend at the bottom to toggle on and off the curves that you don't want to watch.

Quote from JedRothwell

The MFMP people should ask him if that's really him. They are still there. Also, if this is not him, he would be well advised to speak up.

Bob Greenyer has a fairly long relationship with Me356 online and in person. He knows who he is dealing with and is committed, as part of his relationship, to keeping Me356's identity confidential as Me356 has requested.

Regarding the various discussions about measuring another apparatus that Me356 has ... Apparently Me356 created a version of his reactor that was closed up in a housing that would help keep secret the things he wished not to show - this was a black box test offer. His other apparatus does not have the box for obscuring the confidential details and likely will not be shown to the MFMP team.